March 31, 2021 • 41 mins
The Beatles saw the holy city of Rishikesh as a fast track to spiritual awakening, guided by the renowned guru, Maharishi. We’ll experience their trip first hand through the stories of someone who was there…But, we’ll also explore other ways gurus use their influence, and it’s not always for good.
Spiritual Bermuda Triangle Show Notes:
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati (Sadhviji) ~ Renowned spiritual leader and motivational speaker. She lives at Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
Check out her Ted Talk, ‘From Hollywood to Holy Woods.’
Michael Yon ~ Combat correspondent
Richard A. Cooke (aka: Bungalow Bill) ~ Professional photographer and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi devotee, along with the Beatles.
Priyanka Dubey who reported on the predatory allegations against Asaram Bapu in this article for Caravan.
Astray Production Team:
School of Humans // iHeartRadio
Caroline Slaughter ~ Host, Writer, Producer
Ankita Anand ~ Producer
Gabbie Watts ~ Supervising Producer
Jason Shannon ~ Composer
Harper Harris ~ Sound Design, Audio Mixer
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans. Listener warning, please be aware this episode
contains sexual assault. The spiritual allure of Rishikesh, India is
a draw for seekers, which in nineteen sixty eight included
(00:29):
the Beatles, but this holy city is also where Ryan
Chambers and Jonathan Spalen vanished. In this episode of Astray,
we explore Rishikesh and the spiritual awakening that has kept
to one Westerner here for nearly twenty five years. While
she's been empowered as a disciple of her guru, some
(00:49):
have been led down a path by their revered guru
that's not only dangerous but deadly. But before we get
to that, let's answer this is Rishikesh, the spiritual Bermuda Triangle.
Shakesh was on the Ganges River, peaceful but spooky. It's
(01:09):
just got a feeling to it that is just unexplainable.
It's a spiritual Disneyland, you know. There's so much that
you could fall victim too. There is no denying that Rishakesh,
India makes a lasting impression on people, and for said Vigi,
who you met last episode, and cannibal hunter Michael Jan,
it has a conflicting effect in terms of those who
(01:33):
really go missing without a trace. Yeah, there's only been
a couple in twenty five years that I've heard of.
It is not that, not the spiritual Bermuda Triangle. I
promise Jan has a very different opinion. That is the
Bermuda Triangle of missing people. Is that area? It's just
a black hole. They just vanish, obviously, said Vigi defends Rishikesh,
(01:58):
the city she left a life in California for at
twenty four years old and has now lived for nearly
twenty five years. She's there now surrounded by nature's soundscape.
Rishikesh has been a holy city since the scriptures, and
the original reason it's is explained in a whole variety
(02:20):
of different historical spiritual stories and significances, the core having
to do with the presence of the divine, the presence
of the flowing river Gunga, the presence of the Himalayas,
the presence of this sacred energy. But it's also a
(02:43):
place in which, for thousands of years, because it is
considered a holy city, saints and sages and rishi's and
yogis have come and have meditated and have done spiritual
practice and have attained enlightenment. Hindus are encouraged a pilgrimage,
(03:04):
which means traveling to sites with religious significance as a
deeper exploration of their devotion. Rishikesh is known as a
pilgrimage town which has a lot to do with the
sacred river Ganges or Mother Ganga as it Viji calls
her that splits the city into the Ganga is holy.
I mean, first of all, nature is beautiful. There is
(03:27):
a reason that people always have gone to mountains, oceans, rivers,
lakes for holidays, for stress relief. Then you add actual
holiness to it, and you add the fact that this
(03:51):
river is the physical form of a goddess. Ganga was
a goddess, I mean still is a goddess living in
heaven who took the form of this river on earth,
in this river body for a very specific historical reason
that I won't go all into now, but it had
(04:13):
to do with bringing liberation to the departed souls who
were the children of a great king. She was beseeched
to come down on to earth and to with her
water flow over their ashes and give them liberation. Mother
(04:33):
Gunga or Gunga Ma is seen as the goddess of
purification and forgiveness. She is the personification of the Ganges.
So for Hindus, the road to salvation is in those
sacred waters. This is why Hindus travel great lengths, some
near death, others whose loved ones escort their corpses to
(04:55):
be cremated on the banks of the river because they
believe having their ashes thrown into the Ganges will in
their reincarnation cycle so they can reach moksha, which is
spiritual liberation. Moksha is what every Hindu desires and there's
no faster route than Mother Ganga. The ghats of Aranasi,
(05:17):
which is a city about seventeen hours from Rishikesh, is
where most Hindu's track. But funeral processions followed by cremations
of bodies wrapped in vivid colors adorned with strings of
marigolds and other ornamentation lying the Ganges. That is their
liquid cemetery. And so at one point I read about
(05:39):
thirty thousand bodies per year are put into the gandas well,
resent estimates place it at more like three thousand bodies
per year. And the bodies yawned speaking of haven't been cremated.
They're people who have either drowned or had a water burial.
Water burials are banned in India for environmental reasons, but
(05:59):
the practice still takes place because of the Hindu belief
that unwed girls who are considered pure should not be cremated,
and that a water burial ensures they will be reborn
into the same family. Many of the other bodies floating
in the Ganges, or men who have drowned or been murdered,
and they don't just melt instantly, right, I mean, the
(06:22):
body can be still there, you know, weeks later, you
know what I mean, floating down and get caught, you know,
on the side of the river and that sort of thing,
and you know, and they get into brief fields and
there'll be a bunch of bodies over there or whatever
and dogs eating them. It's just unbelievable. You're just like,
I can't believe this is real. And then you see,
you know, a body floating down the river and there's
(06:44):
a raven on its back picking on it while it
floats down the river, you know, and there's kids swimming
around the bodies, and it's just insane. Environmentalists are concerned
over the increasing level of pollution caused by cremation and
water burials and the Ganges. Since nineteen eighty eight, the
Indian Court has directed that the practice of throwing corpses
(07:05):
or semi burnt corpses into the River Gunga should immediately
be brought to an end. It's ironic that a holy
river where people flock to purify themselves as also the
country's most polluted body of water. Jan and Subfiji, both American,
have had very different experiences in India and therefore have
(07:28):
conflicting opinions on the same city. I asked Jan about
one of his stronger opinions. If rishiksh is a spiritual
Bermuda triangle, what's happening to the foreigners who go missing there?
I think there's numerous reasons. One will be they just
get lost and die somewhere. But then there's others that
(07:50):
I think get caught up in let's say a dark web,
and they either fall prey to some individual or something
larger like a network of people. And another is they
actually go often totally break and they're still living there
thirty years later with no visa and no passports completely expire,
(08:13):
and that's sort of thing. There's I think that's a
small percentage there is no data to support this, so
I would not say that Michael, producer in Kita, who
lives in Delhi and has spent time in Rashikesh, has
her own thoughts on Jan's claims. When I was speaking
to people in Rishikesh, they said it would be much
harder for a foreigner to be hidden because they would
(08:35):
stand out, and also because Rishikesh is a small town
compared to a city like Guaranasi, which is also frequented
by foreigners. I was reading this two eighteen news item
which said that between seventeen and eighteen thousand foreign to
this visit Rishikesh every year. I don't think it would
continue to see such a big number of people if
(08:57):
it had been so scary, So I wouldn't really say
that Rishikesh is the place from where people go missing
education of the place where a lot of botners come.
So seventy to eighty thousand turists visit rishi Cash per
year and only two Ryan Chambers and Jonathan Spalen are
(09:19):
mentioned in articles with headlines that identify rasha Cash as
a town where tourists vanish, with one headline labeling them
the Lost Boys of rasha Cash. But for all of
those who are allegedly lost in Rasha Cash, there are
others who have found themselves there. After the break, we'll
(09:40):
hear from an American tourist to experience something other worldly
when she visited Risha Cash in nineteen ninety six, and
she hasn't left since. I felt like a veil was
pulled off of my eyes, off of every way of
(10:03):
knowing that I had, and I could see. This is
Sadfigi describing her spiritual awakening in Rishi Cash. A spiritual experience.
Mini seek in Rishikesh. Some find it, but for others,
like Sadfigi, it finds them. And I could see a
truth and a life and an existence of the divine
(10:27):
of myself, of the universe that not only had I
never been able to see, but I never could have imagined.
And it absolutely transformed me. This was not an experience
Sadfigi was anticipating. She wasn't a seeker. She was a
Stamford grad on break from a PhD program in the States,
(10:48):
and she chose to visit India because she knew as
a vegetarian she couldn't go wrong. And it's holy cities
that don't serve meat and consider cows to be sacred.
It's nineteen ninety six and after getting settled at her
hotel in Rishi Cash, twenty four year old sad Vigi
wants to check out the city and put her feet
(11:09):
in the river Ganges. So she walks a path through
parmart Nikiten Ashram, surrounded by intricate gardens and embellished sculptures
of deities, and continues down to the river. But the
moment she sits on the banks of the Ganges, she
feels something visceral and hears streamed down her face. She
(11:31):
recognizes this place. She's not a tourist, She's home. We
are seen as the core of who we are, pure
and perfect and divine, and all of the suffering that
(11:51):
we experience is due to the ignorant identification with the body,
with the identity, and so enlightenment is really living in
the light of the truth of who we are. Means
I realize I'm not my body, I'm not my history,
(12:13):
I'm not my identity, I'm not my title, I'm not
my career, I'm none of those things. But not just
realizing it intellectually, but actually having the experience of being soul, spirit, consciousness,
and many of us have had it for a moment,
(12:35):
a beautiful moment in meditation, a beautiful moment chanting God's name,
a beautiful moment touched by grace. This was one of
those moments that sand Vgi was experiencing along the Ganges,
but she didn't have an understanding of what this meant
(12:55):
until she met her Guru. Days after this experience, san
Figi was walking her daily route down to the river,
but when she entered Parmashnikiten Ashram, she heard someone say,
you must stay here. She looked around for the person
who had spoken, but no one was there. She heard
(13:17):
the voice again, louder, you must stay here. Okay, she
was hearing things. Logically, it didn't make sense to hear
a voice with no person or object like a phone
attached to it, right, But she hears the voice again
and looks up to see a sign that says office,
(13:40):
the office to the Ashram. Listening to the voice, she
walks in. Eventually, Satviji meets with the president of the Ashram,
Pooja Swami chittanand Saraswati or Swamiji and hopes you will
allow her to stay at the ashram, and he does.
(14:00):
He ends their first meeting assuring her that when she
gets back from her trip to the mountains, Nikitin Ashram
is her home. When sad Vigi leaves him, she has
another unexplainable experience, like the voice she heard days before,
but this one was hard to ignore. As she reaches
(14:20):
the turn to leave the ashram and walk back to
the hotel, she freezes. Literally she cannot move. It's like
someone crazy glued her feet to the ashram path once again,
said Vigi's rational mind tries to make sense of this.
Where her legs asleep? Had she contracted some sort of
disease that paralyzed her tetanus polio. Eventually she realizes logic
(14:45):
is invaluable in this situation. This was something else. Then,
kids playing tag on the path nearly run into her,
so she instinctively steps backward, dodging them. She steps backward.
It's then she realizes she can't take one step out
(15:07):
of the ashram, but she can move back in the
direction from which she came, So she walks back to Swamiji,
the president of the Ashram and also a revered spiritual
leader who would eventually become her guru. The word guru
literally means the one who removes the darkness and brings light.
(15:32):
So the guru is the one who removes the darkness
of ignorance, of that ignorant way that we identify as
the body, as our stories, as our dramas, as our careers,
as our titles, as our histories, as our races and
(15:53):
religions and socioeconomic statuses and sexual orientations, and all the
ways that we use to define ourselves. It's ignorance, meaning
it's true, but it's true on such a superficial level
of existence that the minute that we start dropping deeply,
(16:15):
we realize that it's not true at all. It's no
more true than saying I am the sorry that I'm wearing.
So the guru is the one who removes that darkness
of ignorance and brings light. A sorry is the traditional
Indian war draped around, said Vigi. So she's basically saying
(16:35):
that these labels we identify with and are identified by
are meaningless and as a disciple of her Guru, Swamigi
said Vigi has shed these labels of identification. So the
word disciple is a bit more official than devote it
obviously includes devotee. Disciples are also devoted, but they've also
(16:57):
taken some kind of official initiation through which they have
made the Guru their guru, and they have declared themselves
disciples of that Guru. It's been nearly twenty five years
since Sadvigi heard the voice that told her she must
stay and palmart Nikate Noshram on the banks of the
(17:20):
Sacred River Ganges, and from looking at all Sadvigi has
contributed as a disciple of her Guru, it seems like
it was the right decision. Her devotion to Swamigi and
to her spiritual and humanitarian service is not only a calling,
but it's been an extremely positive experience for her. So
(17:41):
the cost of enlightenment looks pretty different in Savigi's case.
And I guess i'd ask is enlightenment even a goal
for her or for the holiest of the holy gurus.
Simply calling oneself for Guru and simply dawning orange or
white robes does not actually make one an enlightened being.
(18:04):
And interestingly, in order to be a Gurdu, you don't
even actually have to be an enlightened being. I mean,
you could be a smart being, a wise being a
beautiful being who is able to remove someone's darkness and
bring them light without necessarily having to be fully awakened
(18:28):
and enlightened yourself. And in those cases, the dilemma becomes
that when we are still slaves in some ways, or
under the control of our own ignorance or our own
(18:49):
desires or our own egos, then you throw the right
temptations in someone's lap, and if they haven't really done
their sodna, if they haven't really done their work, absolutely
you sometimes see them falling prey to desires or abusing power. Fortunately,
(19:15):
by God's grace, it's not that common at all. Four
or five of them who over a period of twenty
or thirty years have had big scandals are the ones
we think of. The thousands of them who have been
divinely bringing along people on the path to spirituality are
(19:38):
not those who make headline news. There is one influential
guru who has made headline news even after death due
to one scandalous allegation, but in large part because of
his tremendous success and the celebrities who have flocked to him.
This includes the Beatles who traveled to Rishikesh in nineteen
(20:00):
sixty eight to be in the presence of the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi, the father of transcendental meditation. Though Rishikesh has
always been known as a spiritual mecca in India, the
Beatles put the holy city on the map in the
West when the Guru Maharishi invited them to India for
(20:22):
their own spiritual awakening. Mahreshi invited the Beatles to come.
It was probably the most creative time for the Beatles.
This is Richard A. Cook the Third or Ricky for short.
His mother, Nancy Cook de Harera, was a publicist for
the Maharishi and was tasked with decorating the stark Ashram
(20:43):
and preparation for their celebrity guests. The group got the
VIP treatment, mattresses on the beds, curtains, mirrors, They even
had working toilets. Rickie was staying at the Maharishi's ashram
when the Beatles visited in nineteen sixty eight and witnessed
a pivotal moment in music history. I think they wrote
(21:06):
thirty songs while they were there. I can remember them,
you know, at lunch and a breakfast sort of jamming,
you know, at the dining room table, you know, with
spoons and salt shakers and brooms, whatever they could put
their hands on. One of my all time favorites, the
White Album, came out of The Beatles Stay in Racia Cash.
(21:27):
In the Beatles anthology, Paul McCartney shares why they decided
to flee their consuming fame in the West for spiritual
retreat and Racia Cash. He says, yeah, well, it's great
to be famous, it's great to be rich, but what's
it all for? What's it all for? Is a question
they hope the Maharishi could help them answer. But by
(21:48):
leaving what George Harrison's wife Patty Boyd quotes in her
memoir as a steady diet of weed and acid, stumbling
daily through a mind boggling hysterical swarm of paparazzi and fans,
to the slow inhale and exhale of the mont based meditation,
they were able to find their own answers, which, in
(22:10):
a way we all got to experience through the music
they created the Maharishi's as From overlooking the Ganges River
by Maharishi's house, there's like not quite a cliff, but
almost the cliff, and you look straight down onto the
Ganges and also all of Rishikish was very beautiful and
at that time the My Love was there Donovan, the Beatles,
(22:31):
Mia Farah was there for some of that time, and
you know it's amazing. I mean they would be on
the on a barge and the Banjees by full moon
and they would be jamming. You know, nobody recorded any
of this. The Beatles wrote a song about me. For
those of you who are fans of the White Album,
you might know Ricky by a name John Lennon bestowed
(22:52):
on him. You know, I never really connected with with
John Lennon. He was taking LSD, you know, in the
bungalow next to me. I'm meditating. Months later, my sister says,
you know, I think there's this on the radio that
it sounds like you, you know, And it was Bungalow Bill.
The song starts with a catchy refrain, Hey, Bungalow Bill,
(23:14):
What did you kill Bungalow Bill. The song was Lennon's
commentary on an audience he observed with Ricky and the Mahaishi.
Ricky shared with his holiness that he had recently shot
a tiger on a hunt. The Mahaishi was disappointed, calling
the tiger's death life destruction. Ricky left that audience altered
and ultimately swapped his gun for a camera. He's now
(23:37):
a renowned photographer living in Hawaii. He signs his emails Aloha, Yeah,
he's figured something out. You know, I was a young
meditator at that time. To meditate eight hours in a
day is almost like torture. I mean, it's not an
easy thing to do. You know. All of the attention
has gone to all these celebrities, but really what was
(23:58):
going on there was meditating and Mahareshi literally teaching the
bug Lagita. It was, I would say, an intense course,
not only just in meditating, but also in learning. The
bugvud Ghita, a seven hundred and one verse Hindu scripture,
is one of the most important religious texts and Hinduism.
(24:21):
The word Ghita means song and Bugfud means God, so
Bugfudgheita translates to song of God. And it was intense,
not only the learning but the meditating. Of all the beatles,
Harrison and Lenin were the most committed to their meditation practice.
Harrison reportedly said the meditation buzz was better than drugs.
(24:43):
It was a way for him to connect with God,
which is something Lennon said me a Pharaoh's sister, Prudence,
who locked herself in her room and meditated around the clock,
was trying to connect to He was quoted as saying
Prudence was trying to find God quicker than anyone else.
That was the competition in Maharishi's camp. Who was going
(25:03):
to get cosmic first. I assume cosmic means enlightened. I
don't know if Prudence ever reached it, but the Beatles
did write the White Album song Dear Prudence about her,
and she got something else extremely valuable out of her
meditative time there. Prudence was literally taken from a psycho ward.
She had had a huge trauma from bad experiences with LSD,
(25:27):
and literally I think Prudence was healed by the time
she left Mahreshi. But John Lennon had a very different
experience than Prudence. In meditation. He hit with the Mahari
she called an iceberg or a deep seated wound. I
think what Maharishi discovered during that time is people were
(25:47):
meditating too much, too soon, and it brought up too
much sort of psychological sort of He called it barnacles
things that were sort of in your consciousness, deep seated wounds,
maybe even from other lifetimes. Mari, she called it an iceberg,
But I think the iceberg. The important thing about an
iceberg is it's much larger than you think it is.
(26:12):
What do you mean, You've just sort of opened the
door to it. You You're you're taking a little bit
at a time and that and with Marishi's being there
watching over you, you're going to meditate your way through.
What happened with John Lennon is he bolted when he
hit it and when you actually look at the year
(26:34):
that he went through afterwards, it was horrible. I mean,
he got arrested for drugs. I mean, just one bad
thing after another. He you know, he left his wife
for Yoko. I mean that was just it was a
very challenging year afterwards. So that means he stayed in
that level of consciousness or whatever sort of that darkness
(26:54):
that he was in. He stayed with it rather than
coming through it. Rickie is touching on something we discussed
in episode two about the dark side of meditation. Even
the Maharishi picked up on the fact that some people
who meditate too much too soon. Dredge up past trauma
or icebergs, which aren't necessarily bad if you have an
(27:17):
experienced practitioner to help you through it. For John Lennon,
that practitioner would have been the Maharishi, but he and
the Beatles left before he could work through it. It's
been reported that the Beatles fled Rishi Cash because the
Maharishi was accused of sexual misconduct by a female follower
and allegedly also by Mia Farrow. Rickie denies these allegations
(27:40):
against the Maharishi. Rickie says that these allegations were created
by a member of the Beatles entourage who was called
Magic Alex. At the time, he was an electronic whiz
inventor that Lennon called the Electric Guru, but according to Ricky,
he was also the Beatles drug connection. There's a whole
bunch of intrigue and there was a person named Magic
(28:03):
Alex who was sort of the drug connection for the
Beatles before he even came to India. It's been alleged
that the sexual abuse allegations were spread by Magic Alex
because he was jealous of the influence the Maharishi had
over lenin. And though these allegations are rumored, to be
why the Beatles fled Rishi Cash and cut ties with
(28:24):
the Maharishi. It's not why they left. I mean I
remember being at the gate when they were all all leaving,
and what people don't realize is that Maharishi actually had
made a mistake and the Beatles wanted to do a
movie on the life story of Maharishi. They head of
Maharishi's world organization, Charlie Louts in Los Angeles, signed an
(28:47):
agreement with four Star at the same time. Literally they
duplicated the agreements. So when Four Star was coming in
the bottom gate to do the movie on Maharishi, the
Beatles bolted and they went out the north gate, literally
as the others were arriving. So an opposing film had
(29:08):
already been set up and was set to shoot while
the Beatles were there. The group bolted because it wasn't
their film and they didn't want to be featured. Lennon
was the most critical about the Mahaishi after they left,
and his disenchantment with the Guru led him to write
the song Sexy Sadie, which was originally titled Maharishi, with
(29:29):
lyrics like you made a fool of everyone and you
broke the rules. It's apparent John Lennon wasn't a fan,
which was backed up by his ex wife Cynthia Lennon,
who said John thought the Yogi was too preoccupied with
public recognition, celebrities and money. But according to Ricky, the
rest of the group didn't feel the same way. You know,
(29:52):
since then, every one of the Beatles have said what
an incredible time it was, and they've all thanked Mahareshi
for that time, also acknowledged what generosity Mahaishi showed towards them.
He protected them, they didn't pay a penny for being there.
So ultimately, the Beatles did get a lot out of
their spiritual Escapade and Rishikesh and we got the White album.
(30:16):
But as cool as it is to hear about the
Beatles experience with the Maharishi, or said Viji's empowering relationship
with her guru Swamiji, when examining the line between healing
and harm and spirituality, we also have to look at
the Guru asam Babu, who abused his power, making major
headline news for a scandal that rocked India and ruined
(30:38):
his empire. You can't take down a powerful charismatic leader
like Asaram Babu and the empire that protected him without
(31:00):
having people willing to put it all on the line
for justice. You know, I've been a border for quite
some diamond I've done extenuate sky stuff before before thus story,
but I was never this kid. This is Prianka Dube,
an investigative journalist and author who has done some pretty
risky reporting on custodial rapes, so called honor killings, the
(31:23):
rape of miners, and human trafficking in India. She's also
one of the journalists who did a detailed story on
Osram Bapu, who with four hundred ashrams, was one of
the most powerful gurus in India. But in twenty eighteen,
Osram was found guilty of raping a miner. But his
list of past offenses is long and was concealed by
(31:46):
his co conspirators. Dubai reported on the long, hard battle
the victim and her family had to fight for justice.
We had a bad internet connection, so some of the
audio is patchy, but it's still audible. I had a
huge following of you know, one hundreds and thousands of
followers across India, so he his power came from his
(32:07):
follower base. Politics is also related to religion. In India,
political leaders also started giving him attention and they started
they started to come to him because they knew that
it can help them convert a lot of votes of
people who are coming to listen to a sad song.
In sand skirts, sad song means gathering together for the truth,
which is exactly what sad song is. Followers congregate to
(32:28):
listen to their guru or engage in a religious teaching
or spiritual activity. And India's political leaders knew that by
attending Asum's sad song, they get votes. So Asram's devoted
followers and political ties helped him establish power. But how
did he abuse and ultimately lose it. I have met
(32:51):
the family of the girl who was a victim in
this case, and those who have been the most painful
and tormenting memories of my reporting life. Those days are
because you know, the girl's father is this huge, you know,
like welbel sighswood man, and I show this man sobbing,
like you know, sabbing saying that V considered him God
(33:13):
and this is what he did to us. This strong
father was broken by a man he considered to be
a saint. The father's sixteen year old daughter had been
studying at one of Asrum's ashram's Chinwaa Gurukul for the
past five years, but in August twenty thirteen, he got
a call from ashram administrators saying his daughter, who had
(33:37):
fainted the day before, had been captured by an evil
spirit that could only be healed by Ashram Babu himself.
The girl's parents traveled with their daughter to see Osram
at his ashram and Jadpur. Osram asked the parents to
leave their daughter with him so he could perform a
puja to rid her of this evil spirit. The parents
(34:00):
obeyed their Guru and retreated to the cottage behind the ashram,
where they recited his bajans, or devotional songs. When their
daughter returned an hour later, she was sobbing and asked
to leave immediately. When they got home, his daughter broke,
telling her father that Osrah made her drink a glass
of milk, then he sexually assaulted her before she fled
(34:23):
his room. He threatened to kill her parents if she
dared speak to anyone about what he had done. In
Dubai's twenty seventeen article for Caravan, the father sums up
his feelings of anger and betrayal and a quote Asserum
cheated us and the name of God while he was
actually a monster and the garb of a saint. The
(34:47):
father also said that he trusted Asserum so much as
his guru that if he hadn't seen his daughter for
himself that night, he wouldn't have believed her, which is
apparently how other parents whose daughters were chosen for Osserum reacted.
The families of these girls never spoke up because they
were afraid of Osram or didn't want to lose their
(35:08):
family's honor, or they were so blindly devoted to their
guru they didn't consider his acts objectionable, but instead called
his misconduct Baba's blessings. But this father wasn't going to
bow down to a sexual predator, so he traveled to
Delhi to confront Osum about his daughter's sexual assault. Osrum
(35:31):
refused to see him, so he failed a complaint with
the police, and after his daughter's medical examination, the case
was registered. The police arrested Osum in September twenty thirteen
and a trial got underway. But according to Dubai, this
is where things got pretty dicey, and this was an
extremely difficult story for me to report on because there've
(35:54):
been so many attacks on the witnesses. There were thirteen
witnesses and a couple of them were attacked, but I
think she died and one was missing. People were killed
in the wake of os from conviction and Dubai was
also in danger reporting on the story. Fifteen years earlier,
in two thousand and two, journalist Ramachandra Chatrapati ran a
(36:18):
series of reports that exposed the rape and sexual abuse
of girls and women at the hands of the guru
Gramit ram Rahim. Tchetrapati was shot for exposing the scandal,
and the Guru ram Rahim was named the main conspirator
in the case. This is why Dubai was scared to
(36:39):
condemn a powerful religious leader with an empire of Astram's
and devotees can be fatal. It's the most risky story
that I've worked on in my life, because you know
you're taking on when you're taking religion in India, it's
a difficult thing because people in this country are extremely
religious and it's something so sentimental for them that they
(36:59):
if they believe that's a guru, then he will believe
then they'll be like, no, this person't has done no wrong,
that girl has dreamed him. She's lying. So apparently devotees
believe they're Guru above all else. And from what we've
heard about the death of witnesses in Osum's case, when
you challenge people's faith it can be dangerous. But I
should also mention you you know, I'm generally very sad
(37:24):
about the way functioning thinks function in my country. But
I followed the case throughout and all of them, Leo,
they got life imprisonment. They were were convicted, and I'm
happy about it. It took five years of litigation, but
eventually the girl and her family got retribution. In twenty eighteen,
(37:45):
Osraum and his co conspirators were found guilty and sentenced
to life in prison. But in twenty seventeen, before his sentence,
the religious organization a Kill Barattia Akara Parishad declared him
a fake Baba. It's obvious that Asum abuse to his power,
(38:06):
but the sexual assault may not be the only time.
Back in two thousand and eight, the mutilated bodies of
two boys were found near as Ostraum and Motera and
were apparently linked to black magic practiced at the ashram.
So Osram is not only a fake Baba, but a
dangerous and potentially murderous one. In India, gurus are seen
(38:32):
as celebrities and there is an economic and political infrastructure
in place to support their global empires, which is made
recognizing and then bringing down those who abuse their power difficult.
I grew up going to church, not Satsong, but in
the West, we've all seen religious power abused and concealed,
(38:55):
most prominently the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and
the empire of complicity that's covered it up. But as
a Westerner, I'm not as familiar with this idea of
having a guru. So I asked Hikita, who's growing up
around gurus in India, her opinion about gurus. I think
we as humans like to be told what to do,
(39:16):
even if we rebel against families or authority structures. By
a certain age, we are so used to obedience and
not being allowed to think for ourselves we look to gurus,
perhaps not realizing that we are just getting new authority
figures in life. If people have grown up with books around,
or if they can afford therapy or travel, they turn
(39:39):
to those things. If people do not have access to
or information about such options, they turn to another human being.
I don't think there's anything wrong in having a guru
if we have the space to question, and if the
guru is also someone who sees themselves as learning and
evolving in the journey. Like the Beatles, many Westerners are
(40:02):
a learned to Reisha cash by their intrigue with a
gur rough or the promise of spiritual awakening. But from
what we've heard in this episode, not all gurus have
good intentions. And though said Vigi had a spiritual awakening
that changed her life for the better, there are some
whose quest for spiritual awakening doesn't change their life, it
(40:24):
ends it. I think we were not educated enough about
what was happening in Rigucation at all. It's like Russell
went day just for a spiritual retreat and never came back.
We'll hear a Russell's story on the next episode of
a Stress. One person mentioned that it's common knowledge that
the wisterness come there to die. The specifics I found
(40:49):
about Said Vigi's spiritual awakening she covered in her twenty
seventeen TED talk called from Hollywood to Holywood's Check it Out.
She's doing some amazing humanitarian work that I wish I
had more time to share. Austray is a production of
School of Humans and iHeartRadio. Today's episode of Astray, Spiritual
Bermuda Triangle, was produced, written, and narrated by Me, Caroline
(41:14):
Slaughter and Kita Anand is my co producer, and Gaby
Watts is our supervising producer. Astray was sound produced by
toone Molders, with score and sound design by Jason Shannon
and mixed by Harper Harris. Executive producers are Elsie Crowley,
Brendan Barr, and Brian Lavin. Thanks for listening. School of Humans.
School of Humans. Listener warning, please be aware this episode
contains sexual assault. The spiritual allure of Rishikesh, India is
a draw for seekers, which in nineteen sixty eight included
(00:29):
the Beatles, but this holy city is also where Ryan
Chambers and Jonathan Spalen vanished. In this episode of Astray,
we explore Rishikesh and the spiritual awakening that has kept
to one Westerner here for nearly twenty five years. While
she's been empowered as a disciple of her guru, some
(00:49):
have been led down a path by their revered guru
that's not only dangerous but deadly. But before we get
to that, let's answer this is Rishikesh, the spiritual Bermuda Triangle.
Shakesh was on the Ganges River, peaceful but spooky. It's
(01:09):
just got a feeling to it that is just unexplainable.
It's a spiritual Disneyland, you know. There's so much that
you could fall victim too. There is no denying that Rishakesh,
India makes a lasting impression on people, and for said Vigi,
who you met last episode, and cannibal hunter Michael Jan,
it has a conflicting effect in terms of those who
(01:33):
really go missing without a trace. Yeah, there's only been
a couple in twenty five years that I've heard of.
It is not that, not the spiritual Bermuda Triangle. I
promise Jan has a very different opinion. That is the
Bermuda Triangle of missing people. Is that area? It's just
a black hole. They just vanish, obviously, said Vigi defends Rishikesh,
(01:58):
the city she left a life in California for at
twenty four years old and has now lived for nearly
twenty five years. She's there now surrounded by nature's soundscape.
Rishikesh has been a holy city since the scriptures, and
the original reason it's is explained in a whole variety
(02:20):
of different historical spiritual stories and significances, the core having
to do with the presence of the divine, the presence
of the flowing river Gunga, the presence of the Himalayas,
the presence of this sacred energy. But it's also a
(02:43):
place in which, for thousands of years, because it is
considered a holy city, saints and sages and rishi's and
yogis have come and have meditated and have done spiritual
practice and have attained enlightenment. Hindus are encouraged a pilgrimage,
(03:04):
which means traveling to sites with religious significance as a
deeper exploration of their devotion. Rishikesh is known as a
pilgrimage town which has a lot to do with the
sacred river Ganges or Mother Ganga as it Viji calls
her that splits the city into the Ganga is holy.
I mean, first of all, nature is beautiful. There is
(03:27):
a reason that people always have gone to mountains, oceans, rivers,
lakes for holidays, for stress relief. Then you add actual
holiness to it, and you add the fact that this
(03:51):
river is the physical form of a goddess. Ganga was
a goddess, I mean still is a goddess living in
heaven who took the form of this river on earth,
in this river body for a very specific historical reason
that I won't go all into now, but it had
(04:13):
to do with bringing liberation to the departed souls who
were the children of a great king. She was beseeched
to come down on to earth and to with her
water flow over their ashes and give them liberation. Mother
(04:33):
Gunga or Gunga Ma is seen as the goddess of
purification and forgiveness. She is the personification of the Ganges.
So for Hindus, the road to salvation is in those
sacred waters. This is why Hindus travel great lengths, some
near death, others whose loved ones escort their corpses to
(04:55):
be cremated on the banks of the river because they
believe having their ashes thrown into the Ganges will in
their reincarnation cycle so they can reach moksha, which is
spiritual liberation. Moksha is what every Hindu desires and there's
no faster route than Mother Ganga. The ghats of Aranasi,
(05:17):
which is a city about seventeen hours from Rishikesh, is
where most Hindu's track. But funeral processions followed by cremations
of bodies wrapped in vivid colors adorned with strings of
marigolds and other ornamentation lying the Ganges. That is their
liquid cemetery. And so at one point I read about
(05:39):
thirty thousand bodies per year are put into the gandas well,
resent estimates place it at more like three thousand bodies
per year. And the bodies yawned speaking of haven't been cremated.
They're people who have either drowned or had a water burial.
Water burials are banned in India for environmental reasons, but
(05:59):
the practice still takes place because of the Hindu belief
that unwed girls who are considered pure should not be cremated,
and that a water burial ensures they will be reborn
into the same family. Many of the other bodies floating
in the Ganges, or men who have drowned or been murdered,
and they don't just melt instantly, right, I mean, the
(06:22):
body can be still there, you know, weeks later, you
know what I mean, floating down and get caught, you know,
on the side of the river and that sort of thing,
and you know, and they get into brief fields and
there'll be a bunch of bodies over there or whatever
and dogs eating them. It's just unbelievable. You're just like,
I can't believe this is real. And then you see,
you know, a body floating down the river and there's
(06:44):
a raven on its back picking on it while it
floats down the river, you know, and there's kids swimming
around the bodies, and it's just insane. Environmentalists are concerned
over the increasing level of pollution caused by cremation and
water burials and the Ganges. Since nineteen eighty eight, the
Indian Court has directed that the practice of throwing corpses
(07:05):
or semi burnt corpses into the River Gunga should immediately
be brought to an end. It's ironic that a holy
river where people flock to purify themselves as also the
country's most polluted body of water. Jan and Subfiji, both American,
have had very different experiences in India and therefore have
(07:28):
conflicting opinions on the same city. I asked Jan about
one of his stronger opinions. If rishiksh is a spiritual
Bermuda triangle, what's happening to the foreigners who go missing there?
I think there's numerous reasons. One will be they just
get lost and die somewhere. But then there's others that
(07:50):
I think get caught up in let's say a dark web,
and they either fall prey to some individual or something
larger like a network of people. And another is they
actually go often totally break and they're still living there
thirty years later with no visa and no passports completely expire,
(08:13):
and that's sort of thing. There's I think that's a
small percentage there is no data to support this, so
I would not say that Michael, producer in Kita, who
lives in Delhi and has spent time in Rashikesh, has
her own thoughts on Jan's claims. When I was speaking
to people in Rishikesh, they said it would be much
harder for a foreigner to be hidden because they would
(08:35):
stand out, and also because Rishikesh is a small town
compared to a city like Guaranasi, which is also frequented
by foreigners. I was reading this two eighteen news item
which said that between seventeen and eighteen thousand foreign to
this visit Rishikesh every year. I don't think it would
continue to see such a big number of people if
(08:57):
it had been so scary, So I wouldn't really say
that Rishikesh is the place from where people go missing
education of the place where a lot of botners come.
So seventy to eighty thousand turists visit rishi Cash per
year and only two Ryan Chambers and Jonathan Spalen are
(09:19):
mentioned in articles with headlines that identify rasha Cash as
a town where tourists vanish, with one headline labeling them
the Lost Boys of rasha Cash. But for all of
those who are allegedly lost in Rasha Cash, there are
others who have found themselves there. After the break, we'll
(09:40):
hear from an American tourist to experience something other worldly
when she visited Risha Cash in nineteen ninety six, and
she hasn't left since. I felt like a veil was
pulled off of my eyes, off of every way of
(10:03):
knowing that I had, and I could see. This is
Sadfigi describing her spiritual awakening in Rishi Cash. A spiritual experience.
Mini seek in Rishikesh. Some find it, but for others,
like Sadfigi, it finds them. And I could see a
truth and a life and an existence of the divine
(10:27):
of myself, of the universe that not only had I
never been able to see, but I never could have imagined.
And it absolutely transformed me. This was not an experience
Sadfigi was anticipating. She wasn't a seeker. She was a
Stamford grad on break from a PhD program in the States,
(10:48):
and she chose to visit India because she knew as
a vegetarian she couldn't go wrong. And it's holy cities
that don't serve meat and consider cows to be sacred.
It's nineteen ninety six and after getting settled at her
hotel in Rishi Cash, twenty four year old sad Vigi
wants to check out the city and put her feet
(11:09):
in the river Ganges. So she walks a path through
parmart Nikiten Ashram, surrounded by intricate gardens and embellished sculptures
of deities, and continues down to the river. But the
moment she sits on the banks of the Ganges, she
feels something visceral and hears streamed down her face. She
(11:31):
recognizes this place. She's not a tourist, She's home. We
are seen as the core of who we are, pure
and perfect and divine, and all of the suffering that
(11:51):
we experience is due to the ignorant identification with the body,
with the identity, and so enlightenment is really living in
the light of the truth of who we are. Means
I realize I'm not my body, I'm not my history,
(12:13):
I'm not my identity, I'm not my title, I'm not
my career, I'm none of those things. But not just
realizing it intellectually, but actually having the experience of being soul, spirit, consciousness,
and many of us have had it for a moment,
(12:35):
a beautiful moment in meditation, a beautiful moment chanting God's name,
a beautiful moment touched by grace. This was one of
those moments that sand Vgi was experiencing along the Ganges,
but she didn't have an understanding of what this meant
(12:55):
until she met her Guru. Days after this experience, san
Figi was walking her daily route down to the river,
but when she entered Parmashnikiten Ashram, she heard someone say,
you must stay here. She looked around for the person
who had spoken, but no one was there. She heard
(13:17):
the voice again, louder, you must stay here. Okay, she
was hearing things. Logically, it didn't make sense to hear
a voice with no person or object like a phone
attached to it, right, But she hears the voice again
and looks up to see a sign that says office,
(13:40):
the office to the Ashram. Listening to the voice, she
walks in. Eventually, Satviji meets with the president of the Ashram,
Pooja Swami chittanand Saraswati or Swamiji and hopes you will
allow her to stay at the ashram, and he does.
(14:00):
He ends their first meeting assuring her that when she
gets back from her trip to the mountains, Nikitin Ashram
is her home. When sad Vigi leaves him, she has
another unexplainable experience, like the voice she heard days before,
but this one was hard to ignore. As she reaches
(14:20):
the turn to leave the ashram and walk back to
the hotel, she freezes. Literally she cannot move. It's like
someone crazy glued her feet to the ashram path once again,
said Vigi's rational mind tries to make sense of this.
Where her legs asleep? Had she contracted some sort of
disease that paralyzed her tetanus polio. Eventually she realizes logic
(14:45):
is invaluable in this situation. This was something else. Then,
kids playing tag on the path nearly run into her,
so she instinctively steps backward, dodging them. She steps backward.
It's then she realizes she can't take one step out
(15:07):
of the ashram, but she can move back in the
direction from which she came, So she walks back to Swamiji,
the president of the Ashram and also a revered spiritual
leader who would eventually become her guru. The word guru
literally means the one who removes the darkness and brings light.
(15:32):
So the guru is the one who removes the darkness
of ignorance, of that ignorant way that we identify as
the body, as our stories, as our dramas, as our careers,
as our titles, as our histories, as our races and
(15:53):
religions and socioeconomic statuses and sexual orientations, and all the
ways that we use to define ourselves. It's ignorance, meaning
it's true, but it's true on such a superficial level
of existence that the minute that we start dropping deeply,
(16:15):
we realize that it's not true at all. It's no
more true than saying I am the sorry that I'm wearing.
So the guru is the one who removes that darkness
of ignorance and brings light. A sorry is the traditional
Indian war draped around, said Vigi. So she's basically saying
(16:35):
that these labels we identify with and are identified by
are meaningless and as a disciple of her Guru, Swamigi
said Vigi has shed these labels of identification. So the
word disciple is a bit more official than devote it
obviously includes devotee. Disciples are also devoted, but they've also
(16:57):
taken some kind of official initiation through which they have
made the Guru their guru, and they have declared themselves
disciples of that Guru. It's been nearly twenty five years
since Sadvigi heard the voice that told her she must
stay and palmart Nikate Noshram on the banks of the
(17:20):
Sacred River Ganges, and from looking at all Sadvigi has
contributed as a disciple of her Guru, it seems like
it was the right decision. Her devotion to Swamigi and
to her spiritual and humanitarian service is not only a calling,
but it's been an extremely positive experience for her. So
(17:41):
the cost of enlightenment looks pretty different in Savigi's case.
And I guess i'd ask is enlightenment even a goal
for her or for the holiest of the holy gurus.
Simply calling oneself for Guru and simply dawning orange or
white robes does not actually make one an enlightened being.
(18:04):
And interestingly, in order to be a Gurdu, you don't
even actually have to be an enlightened being. I mean,
you could be a smart being, a wise being a
beautiful being who is able to remove someone's darkness and
bring them light without necessarily having to be fully awakened
(18:28):
and enlightened yourself. And in those cases, the dilemma becomes
that when we are still slaves in some ways, or
under the control of our own ignorance or our own
(18:49):
desires or our own egos, then you throw the right
temptations in someone's lap, and if they haven't really done
their sodna, if they haven't really done their work, absolutely
you sometimes see them falling prey to desires or abusing power. Fortunately,
(19:15):
by God's grace, it's not that common at all. Four
or five of them who over a period of twenty
or thirty years have had big scandals are the ones
we think of. The thousands of them who have been
divinely bringing along people on the path to spirituality are
(19:38):
not those who make headline news. There is one influential
guru who has made headline news even after death due
to one scandalous allegation, but in large part because of
his tremendous success and the celebrities who have flocked to him.
This includes the Beatles who traveled to Rishikesh in nineteen
(20:00):
sixty eight to be in the presence of the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi, the father of transcendental meditation. Though Rishikesh has
always been known as a spiritual mecca in India, the
Beatles put the holy city on the map in the
West when the Guru Maharishi invited them to India for
(20:22):
their own spiritual awakening. Mahreshi invited the Beatles to come.
It was probably the most creative time for the Beatles.
This is Richard A. Cook the Third or Ricky for short.
His mother, Nancy Cook de Harera, was a publicist for
the Maharishi and was tasked with decorating the stark Ashram
(20:43):
and preparation for their celebrity guests. The group got the
VIP treatment, mattresses on the beds, curtains, mirrors, They even
had working toilets. Rickie was staying at the Maharishi's ashram
when the Beatles visited in nineteen sixty eight and witnessed
a pivotal moment in music history. I think they wrote
(21:06):
thirty songs while they were there. I can remember them,
you know, at lunch and a breakfast sort of jamming,
you know, at the dining room table, you know, with
spoons and salt shakers and brooms, whatever they could put
their hands on. One of my all time favorites, the
White Album, came out of The Beatles Stay in Racia Cash.
(21:27):
In the Beatles anthology, Paul McCartney shares why they decided
to flee their consuming fame in the West for spiritual
retreat and Racia Cash. He says, yeah, well, it's great
to be famous, it's great to be rich, but what's
it all for? What's it all for? Is a question
they hope the Maharishi could help them answer. But by
(21:48):
leaving what George Harrison's wife Patty Boyd quotes in her
memoir as a steady diet of weed and acid, stumbling
daily through a mind boggling hysterical swarm of paparazzi and fans,
to the slow inhale and exhale of the mont based meditation,
they were able to find their own answers, which, in
(22:10):
a way we all got to experience through the music
they created the Maharishi's as From overlooking the Ganges River
by Maharishi's house, there's like not quite a cliff, but
almost the cliff, and you look straight down onto the
Ganges and also all of Rishikish was very beautiful and
at that time the My Love was there Donovan, the Beatles,
(22:31):
Mia Farah was there for some of that time, and
you know it's amazing. I mean they would be on
the on a barge and the Banjees by full moon
and they would be jamming. You know, nobody recorded any
of this. The Beatles wrote a song about me. For
those of you who are fans of the White Album,
you might know Ricky by a name John Lennon bestowed
(22:52):
on him. You know, I never really connected with with
John Lennon. He was taking LSD, you know, in the
bungalow next to me. I'm meditating. Months later, my sister says,
you know, I think there's this on the radio that
it sounds like you, you know, And it was Bungalow Bill.
The song starts with a catchy refrain, Hey, Bungalow Bill,
(23:14):
What did you kill Bungalow Bill. The song was Lennon's
commentary on an audience he observed with Ricky and the Mahaishi.
Ricky shared with his holiness that he had recently shot
a tiger on a hunt. The Mahaishi was disappointed, calling
the tiger's death life destruction. Ricky left that audience altered
and ultimately swapped his gun for a camera. He's now
(23:37):
a renowned photographer living in Hawaii. He signs his emails Aloha, Yeah,
he's figured something out. You know, I was a young
meditator at that time. To meditate eight hours in a
day is almost like torture. I mean, it's not an
easy thing to do. You know. All of the attention
has gone to all these celebrities, but really what was
(23:58):
going on there was meditating and Mahareshi literally teaching the
bug Lagita. It was, I would say, an intense course,
not only just in meditating, but also in learning. The
bugvud Ghita, a seven hundred and one verse Hindu scripture,
is one of the most important religious texts and Hinduism.
(24:21):
The word Ghita means song and Bugfud means God, so
Bugfudgheita translates to song of God. And it was intense,
not only the learning but the meditating. Of all the beatles,
Harrison and Lenin were the most committed to their meditation practice.
Harrison reportedly said the meditation buzz was better than drugs.
(24:43):
It was a way for him to connect with God,
which is something Lennon said me a Pharaoh's sister, Prudence,
who locked herself in her room and meditated around the clock,
was trying to connect to He was quoted as saying
Prudence was trying to find God quicker than anyone else.
That was the competition in Maharishi's camp. Who was going
(25:03):
to get cosmic first. I assume cosmic means enlightened. I
don't know if Prudence ever reached it, but the Beatles
did write the White Album song Dear Prudence about her,
and she got something else extremely valuable out of her
meditative time there. Prudence was literally taken from a psycho ward.
She had had a huge trauma from bad experiences with LSD,
(25:27):
and literally I think Prudence was healed by the time
she left Mahreshi. But John Lennon had a very different
experience than Prudence. In meditation. He hit with the Mahari
she called an iceberg or a deep seated wound. I
think what Maharishi discovered during that time is people were
(25:47):
meditating too much, too soon, and it brought up too
much sort of psychological sort of He called it barnacles
things that were sort of in your consciousness, deep seated wounds,
maybe even from other lifetimes. Mari, she called it an iceberg,
But I think the iceberg. The important thing about an
iceberg is it's much larger than you think it is.
(26:12):
What do you mean, You've just sort of opened the
door to it. You You're you're taking a little bit
at a time and that and with Marishi's being there
watching over you, you're going to meditate your way through.
What happened with John Lennon is he bolted when he
hit it and when you actually look at the year
(26:34):
that he went through afterwards, it was horrible. I mean,
he got arrested for drugs. I mean, just one bad
thing after another. He you know, he left his wife
for Yoko. I mean that was just it was a
very challenging year afterwards. So that means he stayed in
that level of consciousness or whatever sort of that darkness
(26:54):
that he was in. He stayed with it rather than
coming through it. Rickie is touching on something we discussed
in episode two about the dark side of meditation. Even
the Maharishi picked up on the fact that some people
who meditate too much too soon. Dredge up past trauma
or icebergs, which aren't necessarily bad if you have an
(27:17):
experienced practitioner to help you through it. For John Lennon,
that practitioner would have been the Maharishi, but he and
the Beatles left before he could work through it. It's
been reported that the Beatles fled Rishi Cash because the
Maharishi was accused of sexual misconduct by a female follower
and allegedly also by Mia Farrow. Rickie denies these allegations
(27:40):
against the Maharishi. Rickie says that these allegations were created
by a member of the Beatles entourage who was called
Magic Alex. At the time, he was an electronic whiz
inventor that Lennon called the Electric Guru, but according to Ricky,
he was also the Beatles drug connection. There's a whole
bunch of intrigue and there was a person named Magic
(28:03):
Alex who was sort of the drug connection for the
Beatles before he even came to India. It's been alleged
that the sexual abuse allegations were spread by Magic Alex
because he was jealous of the influence the Maharishi had
over lenin. And though these allegations are rumored, to be
why the Beatles fled Rishi Cash and cut ties with
(28:24):
the Maharishi. It's not why they left. I mean I
remember being at the gate when they were all all leaving,
and what people don't realize is that Maharishi actually had
made a mistake and the Beatles wanted to do a
movie on the life story of Maharishi. They head of
Maharishi's world organization, Charlie Louts in Los Angeles, signed an
(28:47):
agreement with four Star at the same time. Literally they
duplicated the agreements. So when Four Star was coming in
the bottom gate to do the movie on Maharishi, the
Beatles bolted and they went out the north gate, literally
as the others were arriving. So an opposing film had
(29:08):
already been set up and was set to shoot while
the Beatles were there. The group bolted because it wasn't
their film and they didn't want to be featured. Lennon
was the most critical about the Mahaishi after they left,
and his disenchantment with the Guru led him to write
the song Sexy Sadie, which was originally titled Maharishi, with
(29:29):
lyrics like you made a fool of everyone and you
broke the rules. It's apparent John Lennon wasn't a fan,
which was backed up by his ex wife Cynthia Lennon,
who said John thought the Yogi was too preoccupied with
public recognition, celebrities and money. But according to Ricky, the
rest of the group didn't feel the same way. You know,
(29:52):
since then, every one of the Beatles have said what
an incredible time it was, and they've all thanked Mahareshi
for that time, also acknowledged what generosity Mahaishi showed towards them.
He protected them, they didn't pay a penny for being there.
So ultimately, the Beatles did get a lot out of
their spiritual Escapade and Rishikesh and we got the White album.
(30:16):
But as cool as it is to hear about the
Beatles experience with the Maharishi, or said Viji's empowering relationship
with her guru Swamiji, when examining the line between healing
and harm and spirituality, we also have to look at
the Guru asam Babu, who abused his power, making major
headline news for a scandal that rocked India and ruined
(30:38):
his empire. You can't take down a powerful charismatic leader
like Asaram Babu and the empire that protected him without
(31:00):
having people willing to put it all on the line
for justice. You know, I've been a border for quite
some diamond I've done extenuate sky stuff before before thus story,
but I was never this kid. This is Prianka Dube,
an investigative journalist and author who has done some pretty
risky reporting on custodial rapes, so called honor killings, the
(31:23):
rape of miners, and human trafficking in India. She's also
one of the journalists who did a detailed story on
Osram Bapu, who with four hundred ashrams, was one of
the most powerful gurus in India. But in twenty eighteen,
Osram was found guilty of raping a miner. But his
list of past offenses is long and was concealed by
(31:46):
his co conspirators. Dubai reported on the long, hard battle
the victim and her family had to fight for justice.
We had a bad internet connection, so some of the
audio is patchy, but it's still audible. I had a
huge following of you know, one hundreds and thousands of
followers across India, so he his power came from his
(32:07):
follower base. Politics is also related to religion. In India,
political leaders also started giving him attention and they started
they started to come to him because they knew that
it can help them convert a lot of votes of
people who are coming to listen to a sad song.
In sand skirts, sad song means gathering together for the truth,
which is exactly what sad song is. Followers congregate to
(32:28):
listen to their guru or engage in a religious teaching
or spiritual activity. And India's political leaders knew that by
attending Asum's sad song, they get votes. So Asram's devoted
followers and political ties helped him establish power. But how
did he abuse and ultimately lose it. I have met
(32:51):
the family of the girl who was a victim in
this case, and those who have been the most painful
and tormenting memories of my reporting life. Those days are
because you know, the girl's father is this huge, you know,
like welbel sighswood man, and I show this man sobbing,
like you know, sabbing saying that V considered him God
(33:13):
and this is what he did to us. This strong
father was broken by a man he considered to be
a saint. The father's sixteen year old daughter had been
studying at one of Asrum's ashram's Chinwaa Gurukul for the
past five years, but in August twenty thirteen, he got
a call from ashram administrators saying his daughter, who had
(33:37):
fainted the day before, had been captured by an evil
spirit that could only be healed by Ashram Babu himself.
The girl's parents traveled with their daughter to see Osram
at his ashram and Jadpur. Osram asked the parents to
leave their daughter with him so he could perform a
puja to rid her of this evil spirit. The parents
(34:00):
obeyed their Guru and retreated to the cottage behind the ashram,
where they recited his bajans, or devotional songs. When their
daughter returned an hour later, she was sobbing and asked
to leave immediately. When they got home, his daughter broke,
telling her father that Osrah made her drink a glass
of milk, then he sexually assaulted her before she fled
(34:23):
his room. He threatened to kill her parents if she
dared speak to anyone about what he had done. In
Dubai's twenty seventeen article for Caravan, the father sums up
his feelings of anger and betrayal and a quote Asserum
cheated us and the name of God while he was
actually a monster and the garb of a saint. The
(34:47):
father also said that he trusted Asserum so much as
his guru that if he hadn't seen his daughter for
himself that night, he wouldn't have believed her, which is
apparently how other parents whose daughters were chosen for Osserum reacted.
The families of these girls never spoke up because they
were afraid of Osram or didn't want to lose their
(35:08):
family's honor, or they were so blindly devoted to their
guru they didn't consider his acts objectionable, but instead called
his misconduct Baba's blessings. But this father wasn't going to
bow down to a sexual predator, so he traveled to
Delhi to confront Osum about his daughter's sexual assault. Osrum
(35:31):
refused to see him, so he failed a complaint with
the police, and after his daughter's medical examination, the case
was registered. The police arrested Osum in September twenty thirteen
and a trial got underway. But according to Dubai, this
is where things got pretty dicey, and this was an
extremely difficult story for me to report on because there've
(35:54):
been so many attacks on the witnesses. There were thirteen
witnesses and a couple of them were attacked, but I
think she died and one was missing. People were killed
in the wake of os from conviction and Dubai was
also in danger reporting on the story. Fifteen years earlier,
in two thousand and two, journalist Ramachandra Chatrapati ran a
(36:18):
series of reports that exposed the rape and sexual abuse
of girls and women at the hands of the guru
Gramit ram Rahim. Tchetrapati was shot for exposing the scandal,
and the Guru ram Rahim was named the main conspirator
in the case. This is why Dubai was scared to
(36:39):
condemn a powerful religious leader with an empire of Astram's
and devotees can be fatal. It's the most risky story
that I've worked on in my life, because you know
you're taking on when you're taking religion in India, it's
a difficult thing because people in this country are extremely
religious and it's something so sentimental for them that they
(36:59):
if they believe that's a guru, then he will believe
then they'll be like, no, this person't has done no wrong,
that girl has dreamed him. She's lying. So apparently devotees
believe they're Guru above all else. And from what we've
heard about the death of witnesses in Osum's case, when
you challenge people's faith it can be dangerous. But I
should also mention you you know, I'm generally very sad
(37:24):
about the way functioning thinks function in my country. But
I followed the case throughout and all of them, Leo,
they got life imprisonment. They were were convicted, and I'm
happy about it. It took five years of litigation, but
eventually the girl and her family got retribution. In twenty eighteen,
(37:45):
Osraum and his co conspirators were found guilty and sentenced
to life in prison. But in twenty seventeen, before his sentence,
the religious organization a Kill Barattia Akara Parishad declared him
a fake Baba. It's obvious that Asum abuse to his power,
(38:06):
but the sexual assault may not be the only time.
Back in two thousand and eight, the mutilated bodies of
two boys were found near as Ostraum and Motera and
were apparently linked to black magic practiced at the ashram.
So Osram is not only a fake Baba, but a
dangerous and potentially murderous one. In India, gurus are seen
(38:32):
as celebrities and there is an economic and political infrastructure
in place to support their global empires, which is made
recognizing and then bringing down those who abuse their power difficult.
I grew up going to church, not Satsong, but in
the West, we've all seen religious power abused and concealed,
(38:55):
most prominently the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and
the empire of complicity that's covered it up. But as
a Westerner, I'm not as familiar with this idea of
having a guru. So I asked Hikita, who's growing up
around gurus in India, her opinion about gurus. I think
we as humans like to be told what to do,
(39:16):
even if we rebel against families or authority structures. By
a certain age, we are so used to obedience and
not being allowed to think for ourselves we look to gurus,
perhaps not realizing that we are just getting new authority
figures in life. If people have grown up with books around,
or if they can afford therapy or travel, they turn
(39:39):
to those things. If people do not have access to
or information about such options, they turn to another human being.
I don't think there's anything wrong in having a guru
if we have the space to question, and if the
guru is also someone who sees themselves as learning and
evolving in the journey. Like the Beatles, many Westerners are
(40:02):
a learned to Reisha cash by their intrigue with a
gur rough or the promise of spiritual awakening. But from
what we've heard in this episode, not all gurus have
good intentions. And though said Vigi had a spiritual awakening
that changed her life for the better, there are some
whose quest for spiritual awakening doesn't change their life, it
(40:24):
ends it. I think we were not educated enough about
what was happening in Rigucation at all. It's like Russell
went day just for a spiritual retreat and never came back.
We'll hear a Russell's story on the next episode of
a Stress. One person mentioned that it's common knowledge that
the wisterness come there to die. The specifics I found
(40:49):
about Said Vigi's spiritual awakening she covered in her twenty
seventeen TED talk called from Hollywood to Holywood's Check it Out.
She's doing some amazing humanitarian work that I wish I
had more time to share. Austray is a production of
School of Humans and iHeartRadio. Today's episode of Astray, Spiritual
Bermuda Triangle, was produced, written, and narrated by Me, Caroline
(41:14):
Slaughter and Kita Anand is my co producer, and Gaby
Watts is our supervising producer. Astray was sound produced by
toone Molders, with score and sound design by Jason Shannon
and mixed by Harper Harris. Executive producers are Elsie Crowley,
Brendan Barr, and Brian Lavin. Thanks for listening. School of Humans.
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